FLYERS: Read makes remarkable recovery a month ahead of schedule

VOORHEES — Matt Read says he doesn’t think he’s a speed healer, but figures there might have been a little divine intervention when it came to his injury.

“Maybe there is, I have no clue,” Read said, “but I’m just lucky, I guess.”

Read’s return a full month ahead of schedule from a torn muscle in his rib cage is fortunate for the Flyers, even if it didn’t help alter the luck they made for themselves in an awful, 5-4 defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins Thursday night.

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Maybe it was karma. Maybe it was energy from an attempted payback. Or maybe it was a higher power at work. Either way, Read’s return was somewhat remarkable.

He was injured somewhere between a pair of hits by Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz in a late February game in Pittsburgh. He was diagnosed with torn muscles near his ribs, and was given a prognosis of six weeks. Almost two weeks to the day later, he was back in the lineup against those same Penguins.

This time however they got their hits in a different way - scoring four unanswered goals to give the Flyers their worst loss of the season.

Now a critical stretch of four games in six nights that began Tuesday in New York has produced two straight division losses. Needless to say, a Saturday matinee in Boston looms even larger, and a home game the next night against Buffalo is just as important.

Of course, if you’ve listened to coach Peter Laviolette and all his players, every game in a shortened season demands every ounce of effort and hyper-attention to deal.

Too bad they haven’t played that way.

“After losing last night, that was embarrassing on our part,” Read said. “We had the game in our hands and stopped playing hockey. I think a lot of guys took it to heart. Guys are pissed off right now. We have a big weekend ahead. It’s must-win for both games and it starts in Boston tomorrow.”

For Read, the long but quick road back to recovery began with twice daily treatment sessions and forced skating and stick work despite significant pain.

Of course, it did take him a little while to get going.

“I think in my mind I thought it was going to be three weeks or four weeks at the most,” Read said. “The first couple of days I couldn’t even move or breathe or anything like that. So I was very surprised to be able to come back so quickly. But I did everything possible so I could be back on the ice.”

Against the Penguins, Read marked his return with a little self-help test: “I hit somebody,” he said. “It was kind of like a rotational hit and after I got the guy, it felt good. So I got the confidence back that I knew I was ready to play.”

Read began his return on a line with Simon Gagne and Sean Couturier, who has really been struggling this season and can’t shake a sophomore slump which seems to be deepening by the game.

But Read, an older and more experienced second-year NHL player, is hoping it’s a matter of time before he can help Couturier and Co. get back to where they feel they should be.

“I don’t think I played my best game,” Read said, “but it was just good to get back on the ice and try to help this team get back in the win column.”

***So there’s Read returning from a painful injury four weeks ahead of what club general manager and health care spokesman Paul Holmgren expected. Then there’s Andrej Meszaros.

He skated Friday but still couldn’t say for sure whether he would be able to return from the shoulder recovery now some 10 days overdue.

“I don’t know. We’ll see. I have to talk to everybody,” Meszaros said. “A long time ago I wanted to get out there. But when you can, you can. There’s nothing you can do about it except stick with it, get healthy, heal and go out when you’re ready.”

Over the past two seasons, Meszaros simply can’t seem to stay healthy. He had shoulder and concussion issues last season that limited him to 62 games. Then he had back surgery after last season, and tore an Achilles last summer, leading to another surgery.

He finally returned for this post-lockout season, played four games, and went out again with a shoulder ailment.

This for a guy once called an “ironman” for playing 298 straight games.

“It was a long time ago,” Meszaros said. “I’ve said many times I want to play every game. But (I’m) getting older too, and the body is not recovering as much as it used to when you were younger. I can play through bumps and bruises aand stuff like that. It’s no big deal. But when you have major injuries, you have to sit back and get it healthy so you can play more and more.

“The streak was nice, but it’s a long time ago. I’m just focusing on one day at a time now.”

In other injury news, Tye McGinn said his surgically repaired orbital bone is healing nicely. He figures he’s just a week or two from a return.